Not Weak, Just Stronger

Chapter 56: Death Does Not Discriminate...Ever

A/N: At the start of this chapter, play For Everything A Reason by Carina Round. It's supposed to feel melancholic. And later on, Emerald Eyes by Anson Seabra if you wanna be EXTRA in your feelings and in Camila's shoes.

Full disclosure: I've done some research but I'm no medical student or expert. That's too much stress for me skdjdh. Hope you enjoy.

***

September 30th, 2024
Monday, 12:31am - Mount Sinai Medical Center, Miami Beach, Florida

Going through daily life, you never really realise how connected to your brain you actually are. You aren't so aware that it's on autopilot, and you're just sitting, listening, watching—you don't have to understand the way it works or why it works, it just does. So you sit back and watch. You sit back and let your mind take you from destination to destination, sometimes cursing it for the turbulence and sometimes thanking it for the smooth safe passage. But what happens when the time comes where it all ends? Next thing that hits you, your mind is off autopilot and you have no idea how to fucking fly the plane. Farther and farther away you drift from your thoughts and how connected you're used to being to them. You try so hard to understand and manage the controls but it doesn't work. This is your final destination...this is what it feels like.

'And so they say, Lord,
For everything a reason.
For every ending a new beginning.
Oh so they say, baby, for everything
A reason.
And so they say, baby, for everything
A reason.'

Initially, Lauren was sinking inside herself—drowning without comprehension of what was going on within and outside. She felt the sensation of drowning and could hear voices—her wife screaming—but even that sounded exactly how it would if you were nearing the bottom of a very deep pool. She never stopped sinking but she did stop breathing. There was nothing but stillness. Silence. Darkness. Everybody always talks about this light after death—a paradise dreamt about for centuries because the ego makes humans feel like they're owed a heaven after death. Perhaps there'd be everlasting joy and the warmth and presence of some Godly figure waiting for her to take their hand. None of that arrived or excused its absence for the invitation getting lost in the mail, though. To say that where she went to, instead, was an empty place implied that it could be filled with something. There was no way to describe the true state of 'nothingness', it just was.

'And those who loved before
Will be born back together.
Yeah, those who loved before
Will be born back together.
And so they say, baby, for everything
A reason.
And so they say, baby, you will
Be born, born back to me.'

"She's still in asystole. We need to move to intubation and attach capnography fast," the team leader calmly gave the order when studying the monitor and finding there was still no change in rhythm as he gave CPR.

(As most would say) Lauren hadn't died. Once you die, you don't come back. But that's what it felt like. What else would you call it? Near death when it actually feels complete? She didn't know how long it was like this but it felt like an eternity. It started to feel nice...like home. Then all of a sudden, she was yanked and pulled hard and back into her body. Lauren took the single most painful gasp of air before the stench of vomit alarmed her and the feeling of her stomach turned to a raisin made her panic. Her eyes burned from the halogen lights in the hospital room she was in and the medical team assisting her confused the living crap out of her.

How the fuck did she get here and when?

"Lauren!!" Camila cried out, sobbing with her hand over her heart, clutching her sweater.

'I saw you leaving,
I saw the light go out.
I saw you leaving.
I saw you leaving.'

She wasn't allowed near her wife because the team had to work on keeping Lauren alive and stable; it wasn't very common for a patient going under cardiac arrest to regain consciousness after resuscitation. Camila was panicking and losing her mind like there was no tomorrow. They were coming up on October and things were starting to get bad like they usually did; Camila thought Lauren would be the third person she'd lose to that month.